andmaid, and History his minister and Time his ancient harper,
and sweet Romance his bride; where he walked in a realm vaster and more
gorgeous than the great Orient, peopled with the heroes that have been.
For there is no princely wealth, and no loftiest heritage, to equal this
early one that is made bountifully common to so many, when the ripening
blood has put a spark to the imagination, and the earth is seen through
rosy mists of a thousand fresh-awakened nameless and aimless desires;
panting for bliss and taking it as it comes; making of any sight or
sound, perforce of the enchantment they carry with them, a key to
infinite, because innocent, pleasure. The passions then are gambolling
cubs; not the ravaging gluttons they grow to. They have their teeth and
their talons, but they neither tear nor bite. They are in counsel and
fellowship with the quickened heart and brain. The whole sweet system
moves to music.

Something akin to the indications of a change in the spirit of his son,
which were now seen, Sir Austin had marked down to be expected, as due
to his plan. The blushes of the youth, his long vigils, his clinging
to solitude, his abstraction, and downcast but not melancholy air, were
matters for rejoicing to the prescient gentleman. "For it comes," said
he to Dr. Clifford of Lobourne, after consulting him medically on
the youth's behalf and being assured of his soundness, "it comes of
a thoroughly sane condition. The blood is healthy, the mind virtuous:
neither instigates the other to evil, and both are perfecting toward the
flower of manhood. If he reach that pure--in the untainted fulness and
perfection of his natural powers--I am indeed a happy father! But
one thing he will owe to me: that at one period of his life he knew
paradise, and could read God's handwriting on the earth! Now those
abominations whom you call precocious boys--your little pet monsters,
doctor!--and who can wonder that the world is what it is? when it is
full of them--as they will have no divine time to look back upon in
their own lives, how can they believe in innocence and goodness, or
be other than sons of selfishness and the Devil? But my boy," and the
baronet dropped his voice to a key that was touching to hear, "my boy,
if he fall, will fall from an actual region of purity. He dare not be
a sceptic as to that. Whatever his darkness, he will have the guiding
light of a memory behind him. So much is secure."

To talk nonsense, or po